


Scar

by Goldy



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-15
Updated: 2013-07-15
Packaged: 2017-12-20 05:14:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/883344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Goldy/pseuds/Goldy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are things she still hasn’t told him. (or The Doctor Wants to Talk About his Feelings and Rose just Wants to get Laid)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scar

There’s a scar on her stomach. It’s no bigger than his thumb and when he traces it with his finger, she stretches and wiggles at his attentions, mouth curling into a smile. She has another scar behind her knee (horn of a Jarufasee) and one on her upper-arm, just above the elbow (bullet).

But she won’t tell him about the scar on her stomach. She changes the subject or kisses him or leaves the room. At best he finds it frustrating—at worst, his mind is free to think up thousands of horrific things that _could_ have happened.

Rose used to be an open book to him—now, she keeps her secrets. She’s not entirely unlike him in that respect, but he also blew up his home planet and wiped out his own people so he’s not certain he’s exactly the best model to follow.

She shifts and then catches his hand, lacing her fingers through his. “Doctor?”

“Yeah,” he says, pulling his gaze away from the scar.

“When I took off my clothes, I was sort of hoping for a bit more than cuddling.” She pauses and chews adorably on her bottom lip. “Not that I don’t like the cuddling, of course.”

He grins and then kisses her because it seems rude not to. He takes his time, gently exploring her mouth with his own. Her fingers slip into his hair before curling at the back of his neck. When he pulls away, she has her eyes closed and a contented smile on her face.

“Rose,” he says softly.

Her eyes flutter open and she gazes at him lazily. “Hmm?”

His hands move to her stomach again, pads of his fingers just barely brushing the skin of her scar. “How did this happen?”

He sees the change in her immediately. The lazy smile fades and she sits up against the headboard of the bed, none too subtly pushing his hands away.

He keeps his gaze fixed on her face. “Tell me,” he says. He swallows. “Please.”

“You’re not going to like it.”

He likes it even less not knowing. It doesn’t matter than he has centuries of secrets that he never plans to share with her. It drives him mad to think of her keeping this to herself. Something hurt her and he wants—no, _needs_ to know what.

He suddenly flashes back to Bad Wolf Bay and another version of himself and remembers— _he destroyed the Daleks, he’s too dangerous to be left on his own_. What right had his other self had to lecture him when he was the worst offender of all? In a jolting moment of self-awareness, he realizes that he can actually be a bit of a hypocrite.

He mulls that over for a second and then stores it away. It will be something to tell himself if they ever meet again one day.

“It can’t be worse than what I’m imagining,” he finally settles on.

She sighs and sets her chin, looking away from him. She thinks about it for a few seconds and then says, “Torchwood was engaged in negotiating peace talks with this... this alien race. Endmers, they called themselves.”

“Ah,” says the Doctor, “sort of large and furry? With long necks?”

“Very long necks,” Rose confirms, going a little pale. “We didn’t think of them much at first ‘cos they sort of looked like overweight giraffes. But then they got.... not mean, exactly, but agitated—like they didn’t have any idea what was going on. And you know what Torchwood’s like, they practically sent the negotiating team in with full riot gear.” Rose pauses. “Except me. I refused. I said they were never going to talk to us if we scared them off.”

He smiles at her, unable to stop the short burst of pride he feels.

Rose doesn’t smile back. With a shaky breath, she continues, “It was one of the new recruits who started shooting first—John, his name was. He wasn’t a bad person, he was just.... scared. Things deteriorated after that.”

The Doctor swallows down a retort about handing guns to new recruits in the first place. “What happened?”

“They went after John first—identified him as the threat, I suppose. But they were smart. They saw I was the only one who didn’t have a gun and went after me next.” She quiets, staring blankly off into space for a second before continuing. “It was too late, though. Torchwood was finished negotiating.”

The Doctor instinctively reaches for her hand. Finding her fingers, he squeezes them tightly, worried gaze on her face. “What happened next? Rose?”

She takes a deep breath. “They managed to get me out alive.” She manages a tight smile. “John wasn’t as lucky.” She looks down at herself. “That’s a present.”

The Doctor follows her gaze to the scar on her stomach, wincing in sympathy. “Endmers are highly poisonous.”

She nods blankly. “It took me a month to recover.”

She lapses into silence after that, biting down on her thumbnail as she thinks. The Doctor shifts uncomfortably. He doesn’t want to seem insensitive, and while he hates that something might have hurt Rose, he can’t understand why she never told him about the incident earlier.

“Rose—”

She cuts him off, “That’s when I started carrying a gun.” She pauses and, in a softer voice, adds, “It felt like my fault. All that travelling with you—you made it seem so easy, so _right_ to avoid carrying guns, but if I had one that day, I might have been able to stop it. John might still be alive. I just... I had to. I had to protect the people around me.”

She doesn’t sound like she’s accusing him of anything, but her voice is flat and emotionless like she’s reciting facts from a report. He swallows, looking anywhere but at her face, suddenly all too well aware of the warm weight of her hand in his.

He considers pointing out that if _none_ of them had guns—if nobody had thought to give John a gun in the first place—he might very well be alive. But he’s known for a while now that Rose often carries a gun. He assumes she’s used it before; sometimes to kill. And he’s never said anything because it’s _Rose_ and he trusts her more than anyone else. If Rose has a gun then it must be okay because it’s Rose.

It suddenly strikes him how much Rose has changed in the last few years. She’s harder than she used to be. She’s more competent, certainly, oh no doubt about that. But a part of him wonders if she would still be able to take a lonely stranger by the hand and ask him out for chips.

“Doctor?” she says quietly and she turns nervous eyes on his face. She breathes out and he can see for the first time how painful drudging up this story has been for her. “I’m sorry, but I’m not gonna stop. Maybe if it was like old times... but this is who I am now.”

She sounds apologetic and a little bit sad, but defiant too. He opens his mouth to respond and then stops, closing it. He thinks about how she never gave up on him, not even when he told her it was impossible. He thinks about how she crossed universes and built dimension cannons and how she had to make a difficult decision to protect the people around her.

 _If Rose has a gun then it must be okay because it’s Rose_ , he thinks. The logic comforts him—after all, if he can’t trust Rose’s decisions then he can’t trust anyone.

“I could heal that scar in ten seconds if I had the TARDIS,” he finally murmurs.

Rose stares at him for a moment like she has no idea what he’s talking about. But then her lips curve up into a smile when she realizes he’s bypassing the gun issue entirely. “Yeah?”

“Yes,” he says. With a deep breath, he continues, “As it is, I have a half-working sonic screwdriver and an intergalactic cable signal. I’ll see what I can do.”

Her smile widens and she leans forward to press her lips to his, one hand coming up to cradle his cheek. She’s still smiling when she pulls away and it makes his heart beat faster—he always likes it better when she’s smiling at him.

“Thank you,” she says quietly.

He matches her quiet tone. “I love you.”

Her smile widens and she kisses him again, arms winding around his neck and drawing him closer to her. His body responds immediately and she nips affectionately at his bottom lip, murmuring a playful, “ _Finally_.”


End file.
